The West End’s Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Casts Its Hogwarts Circle

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the West End play imagining the adult lives of beloved Hogwarts trio Harry, Hermione, and Ron, doesn’t go into previews until May 2016, but it already has the magic touch, breaking ticket records and selling out through next September. And that was before Harry had even been cast.

Today, muggles everywhere learned the identities of the “new” Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint. Jamie Parker, a 36-year-old West End actor known for being an original cast member in The History Boys, will take on Harry. British actor Paul Thornley will play Ron. And in the most-talked-about casting decision, Noma Dumezweni, an Olivier Award–winning actress who happens to be black, landed the role of Hermione.

J.K. Rowling, who cowrote the new original story on which the play is based, tweeted her unequivocal support, noting that she never indicated Hermione’s race in the Potter series, only that she had “brown eyes, frizzy hair” and was “very clever.” “White skin was never specified,” she wrote. “Rowling loves black Hermione.”

According to the play's website, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child finds Harry an “overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband, and father of three school-age children,” grappling with “a past that refuses to stay where it belongs.” Move over, Hamilton: This is going to be quite the broomstick ride.